Centralised materials handling makes sense for small installations as well as large

摘要

A CENTRALISED materials handling system makes perfect sense for a production shop using the same material in a lot of similar-capacity machines running to the same operating conditions.So the corollary is that it doesn't make sense if you have a few widely differing machines working with a range of materials.Or does it? To show that a central materials handling system can bring benefits in a totally atypical situation Piovan UK has installed one at what must be one of the country's most varied injection moulding shops,G&ATechnology's training and development site at Orton Southgate near Peterborough.Here G&A runs 15 machines of varying sizes from a number of manufacturers,using hydraulic and all-electric technology,and processing materials from polypropylene through acetal and glass-filled nylon,to demanding engineering materials like polyphe-nylene sulphide and PEEK.The machines are installed in two banks either side of a 'Chinese wall'which shields product development mould trials from training sessions.